DISCLAIMER: Any thing, one, or place you may recognize? I don't own it. It all belongs to JK Rowling. Enjoy!
Oliver
"So where are we going for dinner?" Ginny asked him an hour later. Not only had she managed to get five Quaffles past him, she had built that number up to about fourteen out of thirty tries. No one had ever managed to get that many past him before. He knew he couldn't blame it on his flying; his flying had been flawless. She was just that good. It was scary.
"Where do you want to go?" he asked her as they packed everything back up.
Ginny thought for a moment as he tightened the straps on the box. "There's a new Thai restaurant in Muggle London that I've been wanting to try for a while."
"Sounds good to me, I'm always up for something new." They carried the box and the brooms back inside. By now the sun was starting to sink behind the stands, casting everything in that late afternoon golden glow that Oliver enjoyed so much. He estimated that they had been flying for nearly two hours.
"Can I ask you something?" he said as they were putting away the brooms.
"Sure." She had her back to him as she braced her hands on a bar over her head so she could stretch her back. Oliver smiled to himself, some Quidditch habits you could never kick.
"How come you never went professional?"
Ginny shrugged as she straightened back up and turned to face him. "I could've gone professional really, before everything happened. Towards the end of my fifth year there were scouts from a couple of teams that were coming out to see me play. It has always been a dream of mine to play professionally someday with the Holyhead Harpies and Gwenog Jones, who's been my idol practically since I could talk. Then the war came and all that had to be put on hold. Since Quidditch had been banned at Hogwarts I got out of practice. When the war ended, the leagues were still trying to put themselves back together and no one was even thinking about recruiting. Even if they were, I knew I was nowhere near my old standards. So I focused on my academics when I returned back to Hogwarts for my seventh year. I got a job at the Daily Prophet and soon after moved in with Harry, and I've been there ever since."
Oliver had been surprised that scouts had been coming to see her during her fifth year. They didn't come out to see him until the tail end of his sixth year.
"Have you ever thought about trying to play again?" he asked her, leaning back against the lockers. Ginny sat down on the bench in the middle of the room and laid down on it, one leg propped up on it, the other resting on the floor. She stared at the ceiling for a moment before answering.
"I've thought about it a few times, but for some reason or another I always seem to talk myself out of it, or someone else does. I have a steady, paying job. I'm out of practice. I can't afford the time it would take up. I don't have the right equipment. I'm too old. Honestly, the list could just could on."
Oliver knew the feeling all too well. His friends and family, except his parents, had tried to do the same to him. His parents had always been his biggest fans.
"I'll let you in on something my mum told me when I first started out in this business and everyone seemed to be trying to convince me that this wasn't what I should do. She told me that if it's your dream, your passion, your number one goal in life, to do something, then you shouldn't let anyone or anything get in the way of you achieving that. It was some of the best advice I've ever received."
Ginny smiled ruefully at the ceiling, "My dad gave me the exact same advice when I told him I was thinking about trying again a couple of years ago. My mum doesn't like the idea of me playing Quidditch professionally, partly because she's worried that I'll be hurt and partly because she's dying for grandchildren and she's convinced that I can't have a sports career and a family at the same time."
"Understandable and your dad's a wise man."
Ginny turned her head to the side to look at him, "Why are you curious about all of this anyways?"
"Do you still want to play?" he asked her. Ginny swung herself up into a sitting position and braced her arms on either side of her.
"Yes, I would love to play professionally, but I think I've missed my chance. Most female players my age are either retired or contemplating retirement. The prime recruiting age is eighteen or nineteen. I passed that mark six years ago. I think I'll just stick with my job reporting on Quidditch for right now," she said standing up. "That's the closest I'll ever get to professional Quidditch. Now then, can we please talk about something else?"
Oliver nodded and followed her out of the locker room. He knew a losing fight when he saw one, even if he didn't agree with Ginny. With flying abilities like hers, she could easily make any team in the league, even if she was fifty. Oliver just shrugged and together they Apparated back to his flat.
Ginny
When they arrived back at Oliver's flat, Ginny was very quiet. She slipped her shoes off and moved to the sitting room where she nestled into the corner of the couch with her feet tucked up under her. She was grateful that Oliver seemed to sense that she needed her space as he and Godric retreated to his bedroom. Ginny propped her head against one fist as she stared out the window at the fading sunset.
Their conversation earlier had gotten her thinking about her current situation. The more she thought about the last year, the more she came to realize how truly and deeply unhappy she had been with everything. She realized that she had continued dating Harry over the last year simply because she didn't know any other life other than the one she had shared with him. She had become a workaholic like he had claimed last night, because she didn't want to go home to him. They had gone of fewer and fewer dates and hardly made love at all anymore. It seemed like over the last three months or so all they did was bicker and argue with each other.
She had never been truly happy with her two-bit reporting job at the Daily Prophet. Sure it brought in an income and kept bread on the table, but honestly, who would be happy reporting on Wizard's Chess Tournaments and writing broom reviews?
Oliver's questioning about why she didn't play professionally had her thinking that maybe she needed to re-evaluate things and find something that made her happy. She realized many of the choices that she had made were to make other people happy. She had dated Harry at first because she wanted to, then because he wanted her to, and finally because her family wanted her to. She had taken the job at the Daily Prophet, because her mother wanted her to, hoping it would discourage her from wanting to play Quidditch. At first, Ginny thought she wanted the job too, but the more she worked there, the less she liked it.
That seemed to be all her life had been made up of over the last six years: work and Harry. There were the occasional nights out with Hermione and sometimes Luna. Now even those were infrequent since Hermione had married Ron and Luna was off traveling the world looking for her fantastic creatures with her husband Rolf, whom Ginny had only met a couple of times. For the most part though it had been Harry and work. Ginny sighed, Merlin, how had I let things get so bad?
"Oi, Weasley!" Ginny nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice shouting her name. She turned to see Oliver standing in the doorway.
"Don't do that! You startled the living daylights out of me!" she exclaimed.
"Sorry, but I've called your name about three or four times now without any answer," he said.
"Sorry, I was thinking about something. What did you want?"
"I was thinking that why don't we stay in for dinner tonight? I'll treat you to dinner later. Besides you don't have any clothes to change into do you?" He phrased the last part carefully, but Ginny knew the implied meaning behind it. She didn't have any clothes because all of her things were still in hers and Harry's flat.
"No, I don't. I suppose I should remedy that soon. I guess I'll go over after work tomorrow and get my things."
"Would you like me to come with you?" he offered, leaning against the doorframe. Ginny was touched that he would offer, but she shook her head.
"No, it's better that I do it on my own. If Harry saw you there he'd jump to all the wrong conclusions."
"I'm nothing more than a friend helping you out when you're in a tight spot," he protested.
"I know, and I appreciate that, but Harry won't see it that way. He'll assume that we suddenly moved in together that I've been seeing you behind his back, not that he has any right to judge." Ginny realized that she was fuming and forced herself to take a few deep breaths to calm down.
"I can see your point."
"Thanks. So what were you thinking about for dinner?" she asked him changing the subject. She realized that she was actually quite hungry. She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was nearly seven.
"I was thinking that I might pop down to the Leaky Cauldron and pick up some fish and chips and maybe a couple of Butterbeers."
"Sounds good to me, although after last night, I'm surprised that you would offer to buy me alcohol."
Oliver smiled, "I said a couple of Butterbeers, not a whole case of them." He laughed when Ginny made a face at him. She was surprised by how at ease she felt with Oliver. It was like being with one of her brothers.
"Haha, very funny."
He shrugged, "I thought it was funny." Ginny just looked at him. Oliver held up his hands in surrender.
"All right, all right, fish and chips coming right up." He Apparated on the spot with an audible "pop." Ginny smiled to herself, but her good mood soon evaporated as she realized that she would have to face Harry tomorrow and tell her family that she and Harry had split. She thumped her head down on the arm of the couch and groaned.
True to his word, Oliver returned about twenty minutes later with two steaming packages of fish and chips and a four pack of Butterbeers. Ginny looked up from where she had installed herself at the kitchen table with the latest copy of Quidditch Weekly. She had found the magazine in the stack of mail on the table in the entry hall after she decided that she needed something to distract herself with. Godric was curled up by her feet.
"I didn't know you had been made the Captain of Puddlemere," she said as he walked into the kitchen, holding the magazine up so that he could see the full-cover photo of one of his team photos with the caption "Quidditch Star Oliver Wood, Puddlemere United's New Captain."
He shrugged setting the food and drinks on the table. "I don't know why it's such a big deal. None of the other new captains got this much coverage. To be honest all the publicity is the only downside to playing professionally. It's bloody weird to see your face plastered everywhere, even in your own mail. All the press conferences and interviews and such take away from time that I could be flying."
Ginny just stared at him across the table, not believing what she was hearing, "No big deal? Oliver, you're the youngest person to be made captain of a professional team in the entire history of Quidditch. It's kind of a big deal."
He just shrugged again as he tore open one of the packages of fish and chips, "I don't really care about any of that. Sure I was pleased when they offered me the captaincy, but to me it's all about flying and playing."
"I honestly didn't believe Fred and George when they said you ate, slept, and breathed Quidditch, but now I can see that they were right," she said opening her own package of fish and chips and popping the cap off a Butterbeer.
"Sounds about right," Oliver said.
Ginny grinned, "I have a feeling we'll get on just fine." She raised her bottle in a toast, "To new beginnings."
He raised his bottle with a smile, "To new beginnings."
A/N: As always what did you think? Leave me a message after this note~Naomi
